The sun just started to edge up over the horizon after we passed Fort Morgan: The California Zephyr is running an hour or so late, but the miracle is that it’s going at all, after the mess the snowstorm made of the East Coast…
My first view of Colorado was from the train, at dawn, as the Denver Zephyr hurtled across the plains from Chicago. A horde of families from the ‘burbs were headed to the mountains for a budget ski vacation, and after fueling all-night shenanigans in the Dome Car with endless snacks,…
Andrew Romanoff’s had one head-spinning year. Passed over by Governor Bill Ritter in his quest to be appointed to Ken Salazar’s Senate seat, Romanoff snubbed any White House entreaties regarding a job in international development in order to take on Senate appointee Michael Bennet. But even though Romanoff lost to…
Christmas is over, but the holiday show is still up at the Denver City & County Building. This season’s run will end sooner than usual, with the steps cleared of the Nativity and Santa’s horrific hoedown on January 15 to make way for the Big Air show coming to Civic…
The reminder for the memorial site at muchloved.com came in at 5:01 this morning. I did not need it: Not a day goes by that I do not think about Sandy Widener, John Parr and Chase Parr, the three members of a much-loved Colorado family who died in a horrific…
Prisoners in El Paso County got an early Christmas present yesterday, when county officials agreed to stop limiting outgoing inmate mail to just postcards. The ACLU had filed suit against that policy, which the El Paso County Jail adopted this summer, arguing that such restrictions for prisoners who are awaiting…
For years, the blue light of the Qwest sign has dominated the downtown Denver skyline, even as its been joined by other light shows — the spire on the Four Seasons, the logo atop the Xcel building. But if the merger deal between Qwest and CenturyLink goes through, will it…
Yesterday, John Hickenlooper returned to the Denver Press Club — an iconic joint he first visited two decades ago, when he was thinking of writing a screenplay about Damon Runyon, a Denver Post writer who moved on to New York and gained a national reputation for his celebration of colorful…
Denver International Airport was just named the “Best Airport in North America” by Business Traveler magazine — for the sixth consecutive year. Want to know what could make DIA even better? Some decent, Colorado-centric shopping on the concourses — including souvenir beers…
Colorado’s Public Utilities Commission is slated to sign off on Qwest’s merger with CenturyLink today, a day after Montana became the fourteenth state to okay the deal, pushing memories of Mountain Bell even further down the line. The PUC was initially scheduled to approve the merger last week, but all…
The chickens are coming home to roost. James Bertini, the founder of Denver Urban Homesteading who’s been campaigning for more than a year, will meet with city officials today in his campaign to “Free the Chickens” — and remove the regulations that prohibit some Denver residents from keeping birds in…
I spent much of last night careening around LoDo, looking at the 21 decorated windows that are competing in the LoDo Aglow contest — only some of which were actually aglow. But it was impossible to miss two very lit-up new 7-Eleven stores on 18th Street, only three short blocks…
In December 2008, (very) outgoing Denver mayorJohn Hickenlooper was on the set of Good Morning America, wearing a holiday sweater his sister had knitted and showing off Denver’s holiday window, which made its debut on Times Square and was then supposed to return to this city for an annual showing…
Just as traditional as its tackiness is the duration of the annual holiday display at the Denver City and County Building: Mary, Joseph, the Baby Jesus and that weird Santa Helper Hoedown always stick around through the Stock Show, to stun and amaze every visitor to town. But not this…
Denver’s holiday display wasn’t always such an orgy of bad taste. Back in 1935, just three years after the Denver City and County Building was completed, muralist Louise Emerson Ronnebeck created a 76-foot-long Nativity painting for its pediment — a painting that has since gone missing. What grinch stole this…
Long before the Americans with Disabilities Act was revised to protect pit bulls as service dogs, critics have been snapping at Denver’s 1989 ordinance that bans the breed. But last night, Denver City Council brushed aside both the critics and the feds in upholding the ban. And that bites!…
A campaign to change the name of Commerce City fell flat back in 2007. Will the current back-to-the-future attempt to rebrand the town’s 917-acre Prairie Gateway — home of the Commerce City Civic Center as well as Dick’s Sporting Goods Park — as Victory Crossing even the score?…
Bah humbug. On Wednesday, while I was inside the Denver Motor Vehicle office renewing my plates, my car parked outside on Welton Street was ticketed — for expired plates. Yesterday, I visited the parking referee — and here’s some free advice that will cost me $75: Do not expect mercy…
When I pulled up in front of the Denver Motor Vehicle office on Welton yesterday, the parking lot was full and the line was spilling out the front door. With what looked like a long wait ahead of me, I loaded the parking meter to the max. Good news: an…
Two weeks ago, the merger of local Rock Bottom Brewing with the Tennessee-based Gordon Biersch brewpub chain formed one of the largest craft-beer-focused companies in the country: Craftworks Restaurants & Breweries. And now, as we reported earlier today, another big deal in the works: The Wynkoop Restaurant Group, which started…
The riot of shepherds and reindeer and snowmen and candy canes and an oddly large cow, not to mention Jesus, Mary and Joseph, appears on the steps of the City & County Building every November, and protests inevitably follow. But Scrooges miss the real question: Why is Denver’s Nativity scene…
CLEAR is back in business at Denver International Airport, helping ease travelers through the trauma of those invasive security procedures for just $179 a year. And who — besides the prudy-pants traveler — benefits? How about former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff, a fan of the full-body scan who’s now…
